WATERBURY -- Irv Nixon Jr. will tell you it is all luck. If that's true, then Irv is one lucky son of a gun.

Nixon, 66, recently scored in his 10th career hole-in-one at Western Hills Golf Course. It came on Nov. 11 on the 11th hole. He used a 6-iron on the 156-yard par-3, and he knocked down his ace into a strong wind that day.

The fact that Nixon recorded a hole-in-one isn't news, except that it was his first on the 11th. At the Hills, Nixon has one on the 16th and four more on the ninth. In fact, in 2004 he had a hole-in-one on No. 9 on back-to-back days.

"I used the same club, the same ball, and it was the same hole location," Nixon said. "I had one on Saturday against Tommy Dorso Jr. Then on Sunday I was playing Mark Thomas, and he said to me, 'You can't do that again.'"

Um, that's probably not a good thing to say to Irv.

The Naugatuck native doesn't have a secret: "It's all luck."

That may be true, but you don't amass 10 aces unless you can play, and Irv can play.

In 1963, he won the Connecticut State Golf Association junior championship playing out of the American Brass Country Club, now Hop Brook. He was the state schoolboy champion in 1964, and need we remind anyone, Nixon is a past Republican-American champion.

His career best round at the Hills is a 67.

He might have won more regional tournaments had he not moved and played in New Hampshire for 30 years.

Two of his aces were scored at Laconia (N.H.) Country Club. His first hole-in-one

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came at age 14, at American Brass on the old second hole. "That one went in on the fly," Nixon recalled. He totaled two on that course.

Another ace came at Fairview Farm, on the 14th hole — yes, it is a par 4 — but Irv knocked that one in off the tee. There are six total at Western Hills.

"I've played a lot of golf, and I have played all over," Nixon added.

He has played for 54 years, and he still plays five times a week despite three knee operations, two on the left and one on the right. You can't miss Irv at the Hills, hobbling out of a golf cart, slamming every shot down the middle and bouncing every iron shot onto the green.

"If you're a good iron player, you have a chance," he said. "Hey, the holes are short. Something's got to go in sometime."

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